Wounds Heal Scars Define
by InnocentFighter
Summary: Tony has always had scars. Some of them where reminders some of them stood for good. Tony is lost and about to lose it all. Maybe he can be saved? Trigger warnings: Suicidal themes. Swear words. Rating may go up due to themes used.


**Name: Wounds Heal. Scars Define. **

**Full Summary: Tony has always had scars. Some of them where reminders some of them stood for good. Tony is lost in his mind about to lose it all. Maybe he can be saved. **

**Rating: T may become M for the themes used**

**WARNINGS- Suicidal themes a swear words. **

**Author's Note**

**Hey look! An actual one shot! Not bad. So I got to thinking that maybe Tony is scarred more than he lets on and maybe he wants to die but not because he's worthless but because of his scars. I hadn't seen a fic like this so I thought I'd give it a shot to as a experiment for a thought based Avengers fic I want to write. So this is a darker theme. And you know I'm going to shut up and give you the disclaimer and the story. Kay?**

**DISCLAIMER I OWN ONLY THE PLOT. ITS FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY! **

Tony was scarred and he had a lot of them. Not everyone, no one, knew _all _of Tony's scars. Sure they knew about the obvious ones like his Arc reactor and the one on his temple another one from the trip from Afghanistan. He had more but those are the ones his new team saw regularly.

He couldn't sleep. That's why he was down in his lab, in his boxer shorts at least. The habit had started after he came back from Afghanistan. Arm in a sling and the cuts, bruises, and stitches were still visible. He had looked at them because I that point it was to see if plastic surgery would have any effect one it. After he built the first Ironman flight suit he looked at them as an ever visible reminder of what he was and what he vowed never to be again.

He had scares from his fight with Iron Monger. The man he thought he knew wasn't even real. He had tried to kill him. Twice. His most famous scar was from the time frame, the arc reactor. But it wasn't his favorite his favorite was the ones he got when Yinsen had done surgery on him to remove the shrapnel. Yinsen had seen a man worth saving because he was good and not forced to. He could've killed Tony by not hooking him up to the rusty car battery.

Over the years as Ironman advanced so did his enemies. They were able to get him out of his suit or break it. At that point, he did it more out of realizing that his past was truly behind him. No one would die for him again. He would die only for himself.

Whiplash left many burns but the most noticeable one was the one on his neck. He had to wear concealer in order to hide it. Not that he didn't want people to know he had a scar but mainly to show he was stronger than others. That's what made him The _Iron_man. Even when people who saw no good in him, he still needed to show those who did that he was capable.

When he thought he was dying he did this as a map for his past spending hours of his house arrest starring at them. Learning every single one of them trying to remember each who, when, and where it was on his body. At some point Tony thought that his body was a beautiful work of art his scars showed him where he had been and who he had become. They were his life. That's why he kept them so secret.

Now he was part of a team, _The Avengers. _The first time he was meeting the team he was bitter. He had no urge to have a team, that would mean that they might die for him. Fighting Loki had left scars. Hardly any of them walked away from them without scars but as always his were hidden under his armor, under concealer, and under clothing.

When he was younger, after his parent's deaths he went through this phase of maiming himself. He had only one scar that remained on him from that time. The deepest one he ever cut, the one that was the one to trigger to his false father figure that something was wrong. He hid it well it was thin so his father's watch covered it, or a wristband, or a long sleeve shirt, or his armor.

Tony had many scars. He looked in the mirror at ones from clumsiness, fights, himself, surgery, and the ones that changed his life. But he knew they were only the physical touchable reminders they would fade but the ones he wanted to look at the most were always the emotional ones. It sickened him to think he would soon never see the map of his life drawn out on his body but stored in his mind where it was common for him to be trapped.

He looked in his eyes in the mirror to look at his emotional scars.

Witnessing his parents death was the one that was believed to make Tony take his path he walked. He could look at them be jostled back and forward. See the blood splatter and then his parents become limp and not move. If he thought hard enough he remembered his mother's scream of pure terror. Tony swore he never heard anything more blood curling. He could smell the flames ignite in the engine. Feel himself be torn out of the car and feel himself break at the news his parents deaths. He remembered that mental scar well.

He pulled up a chair and still stared into the mirror remembering reopening old wounds. It was his way of cooping.

There was those three young soldiers he rode in the Humvee. The smiling faces the look of admiration on the young man next to him. Hearing the driver for the first time. The seeing the truck in front of him rise up into the air. Hearing the shots fired and the two soldiers in the front seat climb out and die almost afterward. The one sitting next to him to stay put. He remembered the heat ambushing him as he jumped out of the truck and the feeling of the shrapnel impaling him for the first time.

He did the math. It would take less than two minutes for the shrapnel to pirce his heart. Less than forty-five seconds for him to go into cardiac arrest. Yet he still stayed motionless.

He saw in his minds eye the dark room filled with tools and a man that would be the change in his life. Feeling himself fight off the drugs smelling himself and the musty room for the first time. The feeling of knowing that he now had an easy way out but knowing that someone would stop him should he try. Having the idea to free the both of them in a suit that could be upgraded and become a weapon of mass peace.

His hand started to drift upwards.

Seeing Yinsen sprawled out dying… saying his last words… dying… dying… peace… dead. The feeling of liberation and the lifting of guilt as he blew up the weapons outpost and flying away. Seeing Rhodey again and Pepper. The taste of salt as he mourned Yinsen and the taste of the American cheese burger.

His hand paused in its assent. Having thought he had heard a sound. The dwelling one the thought every time something bad happened to him he could recall a good part. He returned to his mind.

Learning of Stain's betrayal. Fighting off his father figure, in his own weapon. Learning how Stain had always hated him. Wanting what he had. Being tossed back to the Ten Rings with Yinsen while in cardiac arrest.

His fingers brushed against the cool metal of his arc reactor.

Remembering how he was described. How he had become two separate people. The Hero and the Billionaire. The sting of those words. Starring into space for hours afterwards. Lost in his mind.

His hand took a firm grasp of his life support.

Meeting his team for the first time. Meeting his idol and arguing with him. The biting remarks he had said. The pain of being spun around in an equivalent to a giant fan. Steve saving his life.

The pain of losing Coulson. Being thrown back into his time with Yinsen. Their deaths the same in his mind. The first time someone was tipped off to his scars. Seeing the pitying face of his hero, of the man who was a great friend of his father. Who's scars, if he had any, were earned in the good fight because he was already a hero before he even needed the name.

He heard something suspiciously like footsteps. So he stilled.

The fight with Loki. The anger at the fact his reactor saved him because Loki couldn't get to his heart. At this point, he wondered whether he had a heart that could be corrupted.

The obvious pain on Thor's face the entire time they where fighting.

Relief washing over him when he finally became a symbol of good when he sacrificed himself to save millions of lives. The disappointment when he wasn't dead. Now that one act of pure good would become a forgotten act as he tainted himself. The scar he got was across his back when his own suit had a piece of metal scratch him when he was caught none to gently by the hulk.

Hiding his disappointment with the first thing that came to mind when it happened to be Shawarma.

He didn't hear anything now. He sighed finally rejoining the present. Twisting his wrist feeling the reactor ease in its tension. The magnet weakening the shrapnel moving forward a millimeter, his heart race increasing. He twisted more feeling the aforementioned feelings intensify. He twisted again, this starting to pull. The shrapnel race forward. His heart race higher than a marathon runner's highest BPM. He pulled more. A hand shot out and grabbed his wrist this time. He looked down, seeing the start of the wire come out.

"Don't." A voice dangerously low said.

"Why?" Tony growled back.

"You don't have to. Your life isn't worthless." Steve said coming into the glow of the reactor.

"I know its not. But its not why I'm doing this." Tony whispered.

"I don't follow." Steve asked confusing lacing his voice.

"Of course you don't. You wouldn't. I'm scarred Steve." Tony said irritation in his voice.

"We all are." Steve said still confused.

"Physically yes. Mentally I'm sure as well. But not like me. My scars define my life. I can tell you where everyone is and how I got it and who gave it to me." Tony said aggressively.

Steve said nothing not sure how to respond. So he nodded.

"Don't pity me." Tony Snapped. "The scars don't bother me. Emotionally or Physically. But I bother them. I cause myself harm. I reopen them all the time so I can't forget. My physical ones have already have begun to fade."

"Wha-?" Steve began.

"I can't live with them. They show me everything in my life. How can I be a walking biography?" Tony growled. "If I end my life I can let my memories go to peace and those who have died or suffered because of me.""Tony, you said yourself you know every scar. You know you fought and got them. I don't see the point." Steve reasoned.

"None of them are good scars! Not my mental ones at least! The only good scars are my reactor, it changed me, and the one from my own suit on my back on my lower left back!" Tony yelled. "I didn't even want to be caught. I finally did something that would erase all my taint from my record. But, No, I had to be caught and live!"

Steve took a pace back surprised at the outburst and startled at the words.

"I want to fucking die Steve! I want my life to only be remembered by my scars. None of them are good. I've tried so fucking hard to be a hero but I'm scarred tissue. I'm not an Avenger. I'm a man with a magnetic pulse emitter for a goddamned heart." Tony cried.

"Tony you are good. You are a hero. Wouldn't destroying yourself dishonor those who have died to save you?" Steve tried to reason. He was scared that he was doing more harm than good.

"Steve." Tony said sighing. "Truth is I stopped living when I woke up to a car battery. I'm the literal dead man walking."

Steve stared. He never thought about Tony being dead but technically he was, depending on how you looked at it.

"Then make a scar on the world!" Steve said with determination.

Tony looked at him baffled. "What the hell does that mean?"

"You said you wanted to be remembered by scars. So make one the world when never forget. Change it for the better, continue saving it, speak out for the right things. You've already begun when you stopped making weapons." Steve said.

Tony nodded. Taking his reactor and tightening it back in place. Then he did something the neither of them expected. He broke down and cried. Unknowingly letting his emotional and mental scars heal. His scars did define him, it showed who he wasn't. Steve gave him a comforting hug and stood up.

He turned and began walking away.

"Steve."

He stopped and turned around.

"You have damn good timing. I would've been in cardiac arrest in forty-five seconds and after I began removing the reactor I had about ten before you stopped me." Tony said.

Steve knew that he had gotten a thanks from Tony, in his own odd way.

Tony sat in his lab. He was still scarred, but he had fewer. Now he had people to talk to who were scarred just not as bad.

Wounds heal. Scars Define.

**And that's that. How was it? I wanted to try something a little different. More of a thought based fic at first but turning into a regular one. I'm working my way into an only thought based fic. So tell me what I should do to change it! Leave me a review! Also any requests? I'm not shy! Send 'em my way! ~IF**


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